UN General Declares Stalemate In Bosnian War

ByReuters, APMay 26, 1994

THE commander of United Nations peacekeeping forces in Bosnia told a delegation of NATO and Bosnian officers that the war has reached a stalemate, and Muslim-led government forces have no chance of achieving a decisive victory.

NATO officers and a Reuters correspondent heard Lt. Gen. Michael Rose, the British commander of the UN Protection Force in Bosnia, say the Muslims had no chance of dealing a decisive blow to their Serb foes, even if the arms embargo on former Yugoslavia were lifted.

``If all the blocks were lifted, it would take years for you to achieve a strategic balance with the enemy,'' he told Brig. Gen. Mehmet Aligic, the Muslim-led Bosnian Army commander in Travnik in central Bosnia.

While the meeting was under way, Bosnian Army and Croat tanks were attacking Bosnian Serb positions near Tesanj in a joint attack that marked the first time the Croat militia had fought alongside Muslim forces in central Bosnia for more than a year, UN sources and local media said. Some UN military officers and Western analysts say the future course of the war is riding on how actively the Croats assist the Muslims. Crimean Parliament Threatened

PRESIDENT Leonid Kravchuk has vowed to close Crimea's rebel parliament and impose presidential rule if the lawmakers do not reverse their virtual declaration of independence, an official warned.

A Crimean legislative delegation and Ukrainian authorities said Tuesday that they would ask their respective parliaments to form a working group on the crisis over the Black Sea peninsula belonging to Ukraine.

Crimea's pro-Russian parliament adopted a new constitution Friday, claiming far greater independence from Kiev. The Ukrainian parliament immediately gave the Crimean assembly 10 days to rescind the document. Many Crimean lawmakers see their constitution as a first step toward reunification with Russia.